Have you been botted?

It was my own fault, as I ventured into areas of the Internet I KNEW were hazardous. I thought the computer was lost, but after a week or cleansing, I finally got it back. (knock on wood.)

There are infections that can invade your computer more quietly, but will become even more destructive. Watch out for something called “bots.”

“Bots — short for robots — infect a computer and link it to a group of compromised computers, known as a botnet.” explains Leslie Meredith. “A computer infected by a bot is often called a zombie PC. Once a bot infects your PC, it sends a message to its command-and-control server for instructions and becomes part of a rogue network, all working in unison. And the activity usually takes place when you’re not using your computer: while you’re sleeping your computer is silently doing a criminal’s work.”

“Just last month, the U.S. Justice Department announced it had dismantled the Gameover Zeus botnet and charged a 30-year-old Russian with a slew of criminal counts. The purpose of the botnet was to steal banking credentials and then use them to make wire transfers overseas. Gameover Zeus was responsible for more than $100 million in losses. Of the 500,000 to 1 million compromised computers, about one-fourth were located within the U.S. The investigation spanned nearly three years.”

“Botnets are also used for sending spam, phishing emails and to perform distributed denial of service attacks, referred to as DDoS. . . .”